The Red Caboose

The train has been a constant at the Hollister Ranch ever since the coastline route opened in 1901. The depot at Gaviota was a major loading point for cattle from ranches throughout the area until the 1930s when cattle began to be transported by truck. Today the railroad trestles at Alegria and Agua Caliente canyons are familiar to all on the Ranch as is the long stretch of tracks between the Rancho Real and the beach. Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner flashes past on a regular basis, and multi-colored freight trains chug along less predictably. Our nocturnal sound track includes not only the yelping of coyotes, the pounding of the surf, and the infamous howling wind -- we also know well the rumble of the train passing in the night and its melancholy whistle in the distance.

And one day last month an old faded red Southern Pacific caboose appeared. It was parked for days along the track at Sacate, evoking thoughts of hoboes and Woody Guthrie songs. The rain had wreaked havoc and the tracks were in need of clearing and repair. I speculated that the caboose was being used as a temporary headquarters for the railroad workers, but it seemed incongruous and mysterious somehow. I kept meaning to investigate, and then one day it had disappeared.

Yet somehow the little red caboose had cast its spell and we all found ourselves remembering train rides of days gone by. Mine were mostly subway rides, which probably don't count, but Jeanne Walker, who snapped this picture, recalled the following:

"When I was a little girl, I traveled by Pullman to Salt Lake city to see my grandmother. A very tall black man dressed in a white jacket with a bowtie brought me my dinner at a table in the dining car. I sat at the table with a starched white linen napkin and silver spoons and ate my trout. We slid past Barstow. Another dignified black man in a dark suit came to turn the sofas in our room into bunk beds, and then he made the beds with fresh white sheets. In the morning we arrived in Salt Lake City, and yet another black man helped me down the steps to the platform. But there were no black people in Salt Lake City. My mom said they were not allowed to get off the train there. I saw a red caboose at the end of the train as it left the station, heading for Denver and St Louis and Chicago…"

(Now that was a good antidote to nostalgia.)